PitchMark Explains the Ideas Exchange: Safeguard Your IP in the Age of AI

Why This Matters

For creators, the pitching process is often a minefield. You share your best ideas, but there is rarely a conversation about what happens if the client decides not to hire you. Too often, ideas are taken without compensation. Worse, the legal landscape is confusing. AI tools scrape public content, and copyright laws struggle to keep up.

PitchMark, a platform that has long offered blockchain‑based proof of ideas, runs the Ideas Exchange. It aims to turn a one‑way pitch into a transparent transaction.

What Is the Ideas Exchange?

The Ideas Exchange lets creators upload their work, generate a timestamped certificate on the Tezos blockchain, and then offer that certificate for sale under specific licensing conditions. Here is how the process works, according to the team:

• Upload and Certify: You log into your PitchMark account, upload your written expression (a story, a drawing, a music file, etc.), and the platform creates an indelible record of its existence at a specific date and time. The original document is not stored on PitchMark’s servers; only a hash is kept on the blockchain.
• Show, Don’t Just Tell: You attach the certificate to your pitch materials. This signals to the client that you take your IP seriously. As one panelist put it, “It’s like a steering wheel lock on your car; it can’t prevent 100% that somebody won’t break in, but you’re signaling there are easier targets.”
• Set Your Terms: When you are ready to license the idea, you fill out licensing conditions; exclusivity, geographic scope, sub‑licensing rights, time limits, and other standard criteria. You then send an offer to the client.
• Get Paid Fast: The client receives an email summarizing the offer. They log in, review it, and pay using their credit card. The creator receives fiat currency (not cryptocurrency), with the platform passing on as much of the transaction fee as possible. The stated fee is significantly less than 10%; creators should expect 94% of the proceeds to be deposited into their account.

The Panelists Explain the Risks

Hosted by CNBC’s Sri Jegarajah, the discussion brought together three guest speakers:

• Prof David Llewelyn, Professor Emeritus (Law) at Singapore Management University. He is a distinguished lawyer, teacher, and arbitrator with decades of expertise in intellectual property law across Asia and Europe.
• Bryan Ghows, a technology lawyer at Ghows LLC, recognised as one of the region’s top voices at the intersection of law, technology, and commerce.
• Mark Laudi, Founder and Managing Partner of PitchMark LLP, a serial entrepreneur and communication coach who has witnessed idea theft first hand.

The panelists noted that AI is not necessarily a new nightmare; similar battles were fought when Google first started scanning books. The difference is scale.

One key warning: “There is no intellectual property in an idea,” Professor Llewelyn reminded the audience. “Once you tell other people, they are out there, unless there’s a contract saying they are confidential.” Copyright protects the expression of an idea, not the idea itself.

The panel also addressed the Singapore Copyright Act 2021. The law is tricky terrain, they said, because the challenge is whether it strikes the right balance between the rights of creators and allowing machine learning and AI to use existing creative material.

Why Should You Care?

For the independent creator (freelance writer, architect, graphic designer, product developer), the Ideas Exchange offers a pragmatic middle ground. It does not replace a formal non‑disclosure agreement, but it provides a lightweight conversation starter. It also gives the client a clear choice: hire you at your full rate, or purchase the license for a fraction of that cost and execute the idea elsewhere.

The platform does not claim to prevent all theft. As the moderator summarised, “this is not a cast iron guarantee.” But by shifting the discussion from vague hopes of good behaviour to a clear offer with a price tag, it changes the dynamic.

The conversation does not end with the platform. PitchMark is also building a global legal network and an IP governance certification program for buyers. The goal is to raise the bar on both sides of the table.

Ultimately, the message is simple: if you are sharing ideas that have value, do not send them naked. Use the tools that are already available and start the conversation that is too often avoided.